Which World Record is Most Impressive?

Duncan Gates

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Current Running World Records

This plot shows men’s world records for running at each distance. It’s hard to read much here since the marathon and 100 km are such long distances all other records sort of lose meaning on a graph. ~40,000 meters is a lot compaared to 100 meters, but astonishingly the pace difference is not that disparate, falling by less than half at ~55.4% of the pace.

Separated by Track, Middle Distance, and Long Distance

The track world records are what I consider to be sprints, which are the 100 through 800 meters. I also add the 300 meters and 60 meters in this part since it is a somewhat significant event, and useful for analyzing pace decline rate. The arbitrary distance of one lap of a track being 400 meters likely does have an impact on which world records are best since all training is conducted on that basis, and hardly anyone targets training for 3/4ths of a lap. I consider these to be sprints because their pace is consistently above 20 miles per hour other than the 800 meters which can’t really be considered middle distance. By pace Usain Bolt’s 200 meters seems pretty crazy given how little it fell off compared to his 100 meter world record, but that seems like the nature of short distance sprinting, the start is what really matters in the 100 meters, look at the current world champion Christian Coleman for more evidence of that. The 60 meters world record pace is actually slower than the 300 meter world record! It seems that it is really hard for humans to get moving. A plot/animation of the speed of sprinters over the course of the race would be very interesting to see.

Next we have the “middle distance records”, which are some of the longest standing records in athletics, other than the 5000 meters which was just broken after 17 years by Joshua Cheptegei, the other records have stood in excess of 20 years, in spite of technological improvements in one of the most straightforward venues of athleticism. These records paces are also plotted in kilometers per hour (kmph).

Finally we have the long distance world records by time and pace, two things stand out right away, GEBRSELASSIE Gebrselassie and Moses’ world records are set to go, and pace decreases very slowly at this point. Humans are remarkably capable of maintaining a pace over long distances, once again acceleration over time would be great to see, for long distance runners I imagine it would be flat at 0 up until the final few kilometers.

Plotting Men’s and Women’s Current World Records Together

Faceted Men’s and Women’s Records with Pace

Percent Difference At Each Distance

By this metric it appears that the most impressive world records are the men’s 20,000 through 30,000 meters. This could also just be the result of these races being largely unimportant in the racing world, as evidenced by the jump in the ratio of the half marathon.

Progression of the 100 meter world record

The vast majority of world records have been broken at positive wind speeds, is this because the races are run in non-windy conditions, or wind speed has a drastic effect on runners? Given how minor the negative wind speeds are when it is broken, it is likely that this is because it is having a significant impact.

Percent Improvement for World Record Each Time

Usain Bolt is absolutely bonkers good, no one else has ever made such an individual dent into the 100 meter world record.

Animation of 100 Meter Records Over Time

Running Records Over Time

Which Records Have Improved the Most Since their Inception?

The Marathon has improved the most by far, but based on the nationality of its competitors that could just be due to initially limited international competition, the story of the 1904 St. Louis Marathon in which only 32 athletes from 4 nations competed, and two South Africans being chased a mile out of the race by dogs was not even the craziest thing to happen (Google this one trust me). I would love to get more data on things like the 200 meter record but I just can’t seem to find any, I’m sure Usain Bolt’s record would be far greater if the data went further back like with other records.

Running World Records and their Percent Improvement
Distances are those included in the Olympics from 100 meters to the marathon
Improvement Athlete Information
Athlete Date Time Improvement Time Since First Record (Years) Location Nationality
Marathon
Eliud Kipchoge 2018-09-16 2:01.39 44.11% 110 Berlin Marathon Kenya
Johnny Hayes 1908-07-24 2:55.18 0.00% 0 London, United Kingdom United States
10000 Meters
Joshua Cheptegei (UGA) 2020-10-07 26:11 18.32% 109 Valencia, Spain NA
Jean Bouin (FRA) 1911-11-16 30:58.8 0.00% 0 Paris, France NA
3000 Meters
Daniel Komen (KEN) 1996-09-01 7:20.67 17.28% 84 Rieti, Italy NA
Hannes Kolehmainen (FIN) 1912-07-12 8:36.8 0.00% 0 Stockholm, Sweden NA
Half Marathon
Kibiwott Kandie 2020-12-06 57:32 16.48% 60 Valencia Kenya
Brian Hill-Cottingham 1960-04-09 1:07:1 0.00% 0 Romford United Kingdom
Two Mile
Daniel Komen (KEN) 1997-07-19 7:58.61 16.38% 94 NA Hechtel, Belgium
Alfred Shrubb (GBR) 1903-09-12 9:17 0.00% 0 NA London, United Kingdom
5000 Meters
Joshua Cheptegei (UGA) 2020-08-14 12:35.36 16.05% 108 Monaco NA
Hannes Kolehmainen (FIN) 1912-07-10 14:36.6 0.00% 0 Stockholm, Sweden NA
1000 Meters
Noah Ngeny 1999-09-05 2:11.96 15.41% 86 Rieti Kenya
Georg Mickler 1913-06-22 2:32.3 0.00% 0 Hanover Germany
1500 Meters
Hicham El Guerrouj (MAR) 1998-07-14 3:26 14.47% 86 Rome, Italy NA
Abel Kiviat (USA) 1912-06-08 3:55.8 0.00% 0 Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States NA
One Mile
Hicham El Guerrouj 1999-07-07 3:43.13 14.01% 86 Rome Morocco
John Paul Jones 1913-05-31 4:14.4 0.00% 0 Allston, Mass. United States
400 Meters
Wayde van Niekerk 2016-08-14 43.03 12.01% 104 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil South Africa
Charles Reidpath 1912-07-13 48.2 0.00% 0 Stockholm, Sweden United States
800 Meters
David Rudisha (KEN) 2012-08-09 1:40.91 10.89% 100 London, United Kingdom[3] NA
Ted Meredith (USA) 1912-07-08 1:51.9 0.00% 0 Stockholm, Sweden NA
100 Meters
Usain Bolt 2009-08-16 9.58 10.65% 89 Berlin, Germany  Jamaica
Jackson Scholz 1920-09-16 10.6 0.00% 0 Stockholm, Sweden  United States
200 Meters
Usain Bolt 2009-08-20 19.19 7.35% 58 Berlin, Germany Jamaica
Andy Stanfield 1951-05-26 20.6 0.00% 0 Philadelphia, United States United States
Source: Wikipedia and IAAF
 

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gatesdu@oregonstate.edu